Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The story of Polly, the push and the journalistic standards

The bullying rudeness and sheer nastiness of Eric Pickles, the chill callousness of Francis Maude and the evident relish with which most ministers flourish carving knives at public services advertise their contempt. Time and again public employees hear of their demise in the news, trashing their endeavours without even token regret or thanks for years of service, only raw glee and spurious charges of wastefulness.

If the public servants are so wonderful, then they will get good jobs in the private sector. Or maybe even start up their own companies—creating worthwhile jobs for others.

He is (for now) the axed Audit Commission’s six-figure salaried Managing Director of Communications and Public Reporting, basically an upmarket spinner. With a household joint-income in the top 1% and some ten times the national average, her husband’s looming unemployment must put her in fear for their multi-million pound property portfolio – the £2.4m London townhouse, the villa in Tuscany, not forgetting the holiday home in upmarket Lewes, Sussex. Thank god Polly and David no longer have to worry about their Amy’s private school fees. How will they cope?

How indeed?

And how is it, I wonder, that Polly can continue to write columns excoriating Our New Coalition Overlords™ whilst failing to declare such a blatant conflict of interest...?

Yes, that's right: it's a typical Polly article in which she contradicts herself even within the few hundred words that she has churned out today—she manages to bemoan the cutting of central government, whilst simultaneously demonstrating why those cuts are justified.